PRTG Tutorial: Monitor Your Bandwidth with SMNP and WMI

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You can use WMI and SNMP to monitor the bandwidth usage on your network. They are relatively easy to set up. Nina shows you how in this tutorial video.

PRTG: All-in-one bandwidth monitoring:
– Analyze your network bandwidth with PRTG
– PRTG detects bandwidth overloads
– PRTG Bandwidth monitor supports SNMP, WMI, Packet Sniffing and Netflow

What is bandwidth monitoring?
Bandwidth monitoring is a method for measuring the actual bandwidth available on a local system (LAN or WiFi). Bandwidth monitoring tools display real-time data such as download and upload speeds and help prevent network strain. Private individuals and professionals alike use bandwidth monitoring to check for available bandwidth.

Find out who is hogging your bandwidth
“Who is hogging my bandwidth?” – maybe you hear that frustrating question over and over again from your users. They are complaining about a slow network and you need to identify the root of the problem. PRTG Network Monitor helps you determine how much bandwidth your devices and applications are using. Depending on your network and hardware, you can use different protocols like SNMP, flow or packet sniffing.

How to check bandwidth usage
Most bandwidth analysis solutions are only able to check internet traffic on a single device. For measuring all the traffic in your network, you need to monitor the data directly on your routers. Protocols like SNMP, NetFlow or WMI allow you to monitor bandwidth usage of your entire network. By using the Network Bandwidth Analyzer PRTG you get informed about all ingoing and outgoing traffic and see what application or what servers are using up the most bandwidth.

PRTG makes bandwidth monitoring easy
With PRTG Network Monitor, it is easy to track and check bandwidth usage in your network.
The bandwidth tool reads the traffic data from your router and displays
the results in three graphs. This way, you will quickly and easily be able to check
bandwidth usage and the amount of data transferred.

The Sensors:
WINDOWS NETWORK CARD SENSOR
Monitors bandwidth usage and traffic on a network interface using WMI or Windows Performance Counters and can show:
– Total traffic on the network card
– Traffic in and traffic out
– Number of received and sent packets
– Total number of packets
– Number of discards (in and out)
– Number of errors (in and out)
– Number of unicast packets (in and out)
– Number of non-unicast packets (in and out)
– Number of unknown protocols (in)
For more info see: https://www.paessler.com/manuals/prtg/wmi_network_card_sensor

SNMP TRAFFIC SENSOR
The SNMP Traffic sensor monitors traffic on a device via the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). You can create it on a device that provides traffic data. PRTG creates one traffic sensor for each individual port.
The sensor can show the following:
– Traffic in
– Traffic out
– Traffic total
You can also add additional channels:
– Errors in and out
– Discards in and out
– Unicast packets in and out
– Non-unicast packets in and out
– Multicast packets in and out
– Broadcast packets in and out
– Unknown protocols
For more info see: https://www.paessler.com/manuals/prtg/snmp_traffic_sensor

Bandwidth monitoring for professionals
n professional settings (businesses or large organizations), reduced bandwidth has severe consequences. Disruptions lead to idleness on the part of employees and customers and a corresponding loss of sales. Administrators must promptly expose and eliminate bandwidth hogs.
In this instance, our PRTG bandwidth monitoring tool will help you to monitor bandwidth, detect and measure heavy bandwidth overloads, quickly recognize potential disruptions – and get down to the root of the problem.

Measuring bandwidth: 3 situations where PRTG comes in handy
With PRTG, you’ll be able to promptly identify potential bandwidth overloads and quickly pinpoint the causes of crashes. One single network component overloading can swiftly result in a significant loss of bandwidth.

Problems with large file transfers
Practically every company sends large files. These files consume a correspondingly high amount of bandwidth. But bottlenecks lurking in every network slow down transfers.

Slow applications
Your co-workers complain that the programs used internally are too slow? Your customers are unhappy because your website constantly seems bogged down? Then the problem probably lies with your bandwidth.

Malfunctions when backing up
No IT can do without backups. In general, backups or database synchronizations require a great deal of bandwidth. Without the proper amount of bandwidth your network can be brought to its knees.

If you still have questions don’t hesitate to contact support@paessler.com.
Feel free to comment for feedback or suggestions for other topics.

PRTG Tutorials are presented by Paessler https://www.paessler.com/
Also have a look at our blog https://blog.paessler.com/

source by PRTG Network Monitor

simple network management protocol